Perhaps saturated fat isn't quite the enemy to our hearts that we thought it was.

Photograph by: Handout
, The Canadian Press

It might be time to welcome cheese, red meat and butter back in to our diets as they aren't the enemies dietitians and doctors once thought.

A London cardiologist suggests that removing saturated fats from the food we consume has not lowered our risks of cardiovascular disease, but to the contrary cardiovascular risks have in fact gotten worse as a result of these dietary changes.

'It is time to bust the myth of the role of saturated fat in heart disease'

Aseem Malhotra, an interventional cardiology specialist at London's Croydon University Hospital, wrote in the, saying the types of food providing the saturated fats are what really matter.

"It is time to bust the myth of the role of saturated fat in heart disease and wind back the harms of dietary advice that has contributed to obesity," writes Malhorta.

While confirming that margarine, baked goods, fast food and other trans fat filled food is indeed bad for cardiovascular health, the cardiologist recommends a Mediterranean diet and certain foods that contain saturated fats.

Despite fat consumption in the U.S. falling to 30%, a decrease of 10% over 30 years, rates of obesity are going in the opposite direction.

"One reason: when you take the fat out, the food tastes worse," Malhorta said. "The food industry compensated by replacing saturated fat with added sugar." He adds that so-called low-fat products are often stocked full of sugar.

"Last week I saw one patient in her forties who had had a heart attack," Malhorta told the Guardian. "She said she had gained about 20kg in the last six months. She had been drinking five low-fat drinks a day." With 15 teaspoons of sugar each, that's 75 teaspoons of sugar per day just from these drinks, he calculated.

'While intake of fat-free and low fat dairy has increased steadily in recent decades, simultaneous to that came changes to our diet whereby we began consuming more nutritionally-poor convenience foods'

Jennifer Sygo, Post nutrition columnist and a registered dietitian and sports nutritionist at Cleveland Clinic Canada, suggested the return to whole, unprocessed foods and home-cooked meals earlier this year, noting that the case for butter over margarine is an open and shut one.

"It has long been recommended that we choose low-fat dairy products, and while intake of fat-free and low fat dairy has increased steadily in recent decades, on the basis that they were more heart-healthy," Sygo wrote. "But simultaneous to that came changes to our diet whereby we began consuming more nutritionally-poor convenience foods, high in sugar, refined carbohydrates, sodium and trans fats - all foods that have become increasingly implicated in obesity and heart disease."

Saturated fat has been tied to cardiovascular problems since 1970. A study at the time linked cholesterol and coronary heart disease, and then connected that with how much energy comes from saturated fat. Misinterpreting connection as cause, saturated fat was recommended to make up only one-tenth of all energy consumed and just 30% of food consumed should be fat.

The advice from this four-decades old study is being rejected by more recent work showing the protective benefits saturated fat has. While the processed meat of fast food has been tied to diabetes and heart disease, red meat has not. Dairy is rich in vitamin D, which when absent has been connected to higher risks of heart disease and depression.

But while saturated fat may not be increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, a Danish study earlier this year showed the effects these foods can have on sperm count. Again, though, that link isn't entirely clear, and critics argue that the source and amount of saturated fats matters more than the fats themselves.

"Researchers found that young Danish men who ate the most saturated fats had a 38% lower concentration of sperm and 41% lower sperm counts in their semen than those who ate the least fat," according to the study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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